Yesteryear's Brownsville, Texas

By Diego Garcia III | editor of Yesteryear's Brownsville A front view of Whitman's on 11th Street, courtesy of our friends over at Brownsville Station Among the many things I collect are medals, insignia, ribbons, and uniforms of the United States military. I have always been fascinated by them. I am a member of several militaria collecting pages on Facebook. Recently, one of the members of one of the pages made a YouTube video about the death of the surplus store. Almost all militaria sales have moved online to sites like eBay and the like. The surplus store, or the army/navy store, is slowly beginning to fade into extinction. What follows are the memories of a young boy walking around Downtown Brownsville wishing he could afford all the things he saw in the shop windows of Whitman's. During World War II, Americans were hamstrung by the government in regards to what they could buy. Rationing was the order of the day. After the Axis powers were defeated, the gov...

By DIEGO GARCIA III | editor of Yesteryear's Brownsville The East Side of the Hotel El Jardin. To the left, you can see the Mo-Pac Train Depot. If you've ever visited Downtown Brownsville, you've seen it. Across the old Capitol Theater, towering above every other building on the block, there she stands — the once great Hotel El Jardin. Crumbling and deteriorating, the multi-level abandoned building once hosted the likes of Amelia Earhart and Cantinflas. People of past generations tell stories of the an Yturria Family wedding where fountains had bottles of expensive champagne floating in them. She was once the crown jewel of Downtown. We won't see the likes of her built ever again. Postcard showing the Hotel "El Jardin." So many stories have been told about the hotel. I can only imagine what it would have been like to see the hotel in the 1920's and 30's. The hotel must have been a luxurious place. My first interaction with anything havi...

By DIEGO GARCIA III | editor of Yesteryear's Brownsville Hello. Welcome to the Yesteryear's Brownsville blog. I tried my hand at investigative blogging a few months ago, but I decided I wasn't well suited for that task. I figured I would stick to what I was good at — writing about Brownsville and her colorful history (I figure there are enough political blogs out there anyway...there's no reason trying to break through with another one). This blog's first incarnation was a Facebook group called Yesteryear's Brownsville. I will try to import some of the stories I wrote there to this blog. I would like to take this time to welcome all of you to the blog and thank you for stopping by. I would also like to thank Javier Garcia from the Bronsbil Estación / Brownsville Station blog and his words of encouragement to restart this blog. I hope you find the site entertaining. Enjoy your stay.